Chapter 6
Reese ghosted to the only place she could think of where she wouldn’t be asked to be anything more than herself. When her boots materialized in the hardwoods, she almost dropped to her knees with the relief that flooded her.
Anna glanced up from the new medical journal in her hands as she crossed her bare ankles on the sofa cushions. Her scarlet hair fell across her blue eyes as her head tilted. Shaking it back from her face, she arched a brow. “I wondered how long it would take you.”
Her head fell forward to hang limply and her shoulders sagged. Reese exhaled a long breath, welcoming the voice and its lack of judgement. “You knew I’d come?” Slowly, she raised her head and commanded her feet to carry her to the brown leather chair beside the couch and dropped into it with a sigh.
“Eventually, yes.” Ana shrugged and dog eared the page shed been reading, before closing the magazine and tossing it onto the coffee table. “Figured it would take longer. You’re stubborn.”
Reese snorted a laugh that she didn’t feel and dropped her had back to stare at the ceiling. “Well, here I am. I should have just come here in the first place.”
Anna watched her silently for a few minutes. “That must have hurt.”
“Huh?” Reese’s brow arched but her head didn’t move.
“Admitting that,” Ana smirked and tucked her legs under her as she turned to see her lifelong friend better. Misery tainted the air around the lioness like one of those damn perfume spraying people at the mall. She put herself under too much pressure and held herself to impossible standards. She always had. Ana blamed Ozzy for it. If Reese hadn’t been born to that man, she could have used her grit and determination to climb to the top of any profession she chose. People like Reese, changed the world. It was a crime that Ozzy had never seen that. “So, what’s kicking your ass?”
“You have no idea. I think it’s gonna leave a scar.” One side of her mouth hitched up a tiny bit. “All of it,” she groaned and scrubbed her face with her hands, before rolling her head on the backrest to meet Ana’s eyes. “I’m in so far over my head, Timone. I don’t think I can do this.” Reese blinked her eyes as they grew wet and she could finally let her defenses drop. “I’m fucking everything up.”
“Poor, Nala,” Ana reached out and patted Reese’s arm, trying to ignore the emotions that shot through her fingertips. Sometimes, no, most of the time, being an empath sucked. Her dark brows shrugged together as she fought to let Reese tell her everything in her own time. The lioness needed it, because she’d never admitted out loud that she was failing at anything before. “Is this a Zinfandel or bourbon kind of talk?”
Reese smiled and covered her friend’s hand on her arm. “Bourbon. Lots of it.” She knew that Ana knew everything going on inside her at a touch and appreciated the hell out of her not outing it before Reese was ready.
“Lucky for you, I stocked up,” Ana grinned and got up to get the bottles from under the kitchen sink, where she kept them. Gabbing two glasses, she piled the bottles in her arms and returned to the living room. “I have some Knob, Hennessy, Jack and Crown,” she said as she placed the bottles on the table and picked up the remote to turn on the television, nodding her approval at an episode of Maury. Good mindless background noise was exactly what they needed.
Turning her eyes to the sound of Maury announcing that some unfortunate soul ‘Was the father!’ Reese chuckled. “Damn, you really were expecting me.”
Ana shrugged and poured a little from each bottle into each glass before handing one to the lioness. “Someone has to take care of you, Nala.”
Reese leaned forward in the chair and took the glass, resting her elbows on her knees and holding the drink between them. “Thanks,” she raised the glass and took a sip, before making a face and resuming her hunched over pose. “What should I do?”
“What do you want to do?” Ana sipped her drink and shivered at both the taste and the burn.
“Give up, change my name and move far away,” Reese admitted, dropping her head and shaking it.
“That sounds nice. I’ll go with you.”
Reese laughed and shook the blonde hair back from her face. “Sounds perfect.”
Ana grinned and leaned back on the sofa. “Won’t you miss the Panther though?”
Reese growled, before she remembered who she was talking to. Of course, Ana knew. “I don’t know. I’m kinda pissed at him right now.”
“What did he do? Get all protective male and try to be your shield or some shit?” Ana laughed, knowing that that was one of Reese’s hot buttons. It had been since they were cubs and while Ana went to finishing school, Reese slept in the AP barracks, the only female, and tried to prove that she was just as tough, if not tougher, that the rest.
Reese growled again and took a long drink.
“He didn’t,” Ana’s jaw fell open before she laughed. That poor panther, he knew not what he’d done.
“He did. In front of the team.” Reese raked a hand through her hair. “Getting pelvic was a mistake. I should have known better, but with everything going on,” her voice tailed off in a tried sigh.
Ana winced. “Maybe he just loves you and had a momentary lapse,” she offered, trying to make her friend feel better.
Reese stared at her for a long moment. “It’s not just that, although, that is enough. Maybe I’m just being too thin skinned. I don’t know, I’m new to the whole,” she made a face, “Relationship, thing.”
“War wound?” Ana teased, knowing damn well that she was wrong. “I mean, can he?” She held up her hand and extended her index finger, arching a brow.
Reese closed her eyes and shook her head. “God are you thirteen?” She couldn’t help her chuckle, “His parts work fine. That isn’t the problem, thanks for asking.”
“Then what is?”
“You really want to know?”
Ana nodded, watching Reese drain most of her glass and set it on the coffee table.
“Okay, fine.” Reese sighed and scrubbed her fave with her hand. “I’ve asked him to be my second in command, because in all honesty, I have no fucking clue what I’m doing. I can run a team, but everything? I’m lost.” Reese ignored the shocked look on Ana’s face. “But, every time I try to get him to make a decision, I get the same BS.” Reese curled her lip in disgust and pinched the space in front of her with air quotes. “No. You’re the boss.”
“So, replace him with someone who does what you need them to.” Ana shrugged, more shocked that Reese was spilling her guts, than anything else.
“Yeah,” she rubbed her palms on the thighs of her jeans.
“What else?” Ana wiggled gimme fingers at her and refilled the glasses. Either they were going to get this stuff out of the lioness and into the open or they were going to get wasted.
“He comes up with loads of suggestions, but not when I ask for them. He waits until we’re in the middle of a mission and then it’s like he is compelled to point out everything I’m missing. I mean, I know I suck at this. I don’t need it pointed out in front of the men. How the hell are they supposed to trust fuck all that comes out of my mouth, when EVERYTHING is second guessed by the one who’s supposed to be my right hand?”
“He what?” Ana blinked at her and took a drink herself. She’d been rooting for Blade until that moment.
“If I didn’t doubt I could do this before, I do sure as fuck do now. So are the ones that don’t want me there to begin with.” She blinked back frustrated tears and emptied the fresh glass. “So, yeah. I left and told him he could have the job and I’d go work for the Mangus Prowl. I rock the grunt role. I suck in this one.”
Ana’s brow arched and she ground her teeth. She and the Panther needed to have words if this was how things were going down. It might not seem like a big deal to anyone else, but Ana was acutely aware of how much of Reese’s identity was wrapped up in how well she did her job. To her, it was the one thing that measured her value and if any male thought they were going to screw with that, Ana wasn’t going to put up with it. Not for a second.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Reese shrugged and her throat tightened painfully. “I’ve tried, but there comes a point that I have to admit failure before more people die.”
“Bullshit,” Ana grumbled. “Do you really want to hear what I think? I only ask because I’m about to lay some truth on you and you’re probably not going to like it.”
“Yes, I do.” Reese braced herself to be told that Blade was right, because she had no confidence in her own decision making anymore. Walking away would kill her, but she didn’t see another alternative.
“Okay, then,” Ana arched a brow in warning and waited for the lioness to change her mind. When she didn’t, Ana held up one finger and began down her list. “One, how fucking dare he make you doubt yourself. No cock, no matter how good, is worth that. Two, if Ozzy tried this shit, you’d gut him and leave him in a bleeding pile on my floor. Three, this shit takes time to sort out. Take the damn time. Four, you’re trying to do too much.” She growled when Reese opened her mouth, “Still talking. When do you remember Ozzy being on the front line of everything, at once. He sat in his office, let his CO’s handle the dirty work and took reports from them. He had no use for the peanut gallery and neither should you. If you are going to run the ENTIRE organization, then you need to step back and have your people do their fucking jobs. And five, because I love you, I won’t even get started on you needing time to deal with the death of your father, but you do and soon.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Reese sat back in her chair and felt like she’d just been run over by a bus. Everyone thought Ana was quiet and meek. They were wrong. Especially when the snow leopard’s hackles were up.
“Now, I’m finished.”
Reese sipped her drink thoughtfully, giving Ana’s rant some thought. She had some valid points. Ozzy hadn’t run AP from the front lines. It happened occasionally, but it was standard operating procedure to assign problems to teams and deal only with the commanding officers. “No cock is that good?” She laughed and shook her head.
“No. It’s not,” Anna laughed too. “Trust me.”
Reese grinned, shocked that she could anymore. “What would I do without you, Timone?”
“Crash and burn, Nala. Crash and burn,” Ana smirked and got up to get a notebook and a pen. She dropped back onto the sofa and watched Reese. She’d known the female too long, not to see the wheels turning as Reese worked the problem in her head. “Now, let’s map out your plan of attack for the AP bullshit. Next, we’ll deal with the rest of the world.”
Nodding and feeling like she had at least a snowball’s chance in hell at salvaging this, Reese began listing what she thought the first steps were, listened to Ana’s feedback and together they filled the pages with actionable steps. None of them involved Reese quitting or having to bend a knee to a Mangus.